On the Web.

Welcome to The Daily Critter! We open with the photo of a fairly large spider from Mysore. Casually referred to as the ‘Signature spider’ this is a female Argiope anasuja, belonging to a genus of spiders called the St. Andrew’s Cross spiders. These spiders build lovely two-dimensional orb webs, the ones you see in textbooks and illustrations, with a special twist. The X-shaped white bands that you see are called stabilimenta, ornamental decorations whose function has not yet been fully understood. Taken back in October last year, this is the spider that started it all. MetadataCanon Powershot G11. ISO 80. f/4.5 at 1/80 second. Edited using Picasa 3.8 and Adobe Photoshop CS5. Taken in October 2010 at Karanji Lake, Mysore, India.